struck she was absolutely his--for she had
given up her will to him.

The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and
the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the
room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have
kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he
could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told
her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since
all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time
filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love
meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could
have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the
power to give birth to Love.

But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite
sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not
respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any
rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man
whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been
content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy
in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his
arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself
becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that
haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never
to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they
stood together within the pale of eternity.

In this, their last dance together!

VII

Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de
Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the small
apartment which her father had taken for himself and his family in the
rue du Marais.

She sat, with one elbow resting on the window-sill, her right hand
fingering, with nervy, febrile movements, a letter which she held.
Jeanne had handed it to her when she came home from the ball: M. de St.
Genis, Jeanne explained, had given it to her earlier in the evening
. . . soon after ten o'clock it must have been . . . M. le Marquis
seemed in a great hurry, but he made Jeanne swear most solemnly that
Mademoiselle Crystal should have the letter as soon as she came home
. . . also M. le Marquis had insisted that the letter should be given to
Mademoiselle when sh